Californiacated

We've driven 1,650 of miles of some the most beautiful and dramatic landscapes from mountains, deserts & the Pacific. The American countryside leaves you speechless and humbled in its vastness. At no point was it ever a chore to hit the road and see where it would take you. Not having a destination and being constrained by time, we were allowed just to absorb it all and take it all in at our own pace.

The cities were no less a spectacle in their vastness and individuality. All though interesting and fun to visit they just brought home the fact that I'm a country boy at heart. I spent more time photographing animals and birds (feathered ones) in San Francisco than the city.

This has been a great eye opening trip that I have enjoyed greatly with no small thanks to Stevie, whose been a great travel companion and friend. His endless googleing and fact finding about the places we've visited has brought them to life. I look forward to our next adventure.

Gravity is overrated

Imagine a light grey piece of paper with nothing on it, then that would have been the Golden Gate bridge today. We decided to walk it anyway in the hope that the fog would clear whilst we walked its length of just over 2 miles, no chance it was even thicker when we returned to the car.

With steep gradients, some seem near vertical, we walked miles and miles. Then took a cable car when to Union Square from Fishermans Wharf, like Stuart said, it seemed like a roller coaster at times...

Turning a corner downtown, we came across a large protest of Hotel workers fighting for their rights, apparently they wanted a contract and they wanted it now!

Without hesitation we both went into press mode and covered the event, just incase...

China town is one of the largest outside China, the streets were busy with frenetic activity and everyone had something to sell. Being hungry I was tempted, but we had promised ourselves steak that evening....

Today is the day we fly home, it has been an excellent adventure. Whilst I have enjoyed the vast difference America has to offer, I do miss my lovely family very much and can't wait to return home to them. Oh yeah! and my monkey tea of coarse.... x

Cars, trucks and vans.

Spending many hours on the freeway, I have come across a vast selection of names that detroit chooses to call their offspring. Lincoln Navigator, Chevy Trail Blazer, dodge Wewillkillyou! Then even Toyota Tacoma, could you imagine a Nissan Nuneaton?

Finding a bed in San Francisco was hard, there was a IBM convention in town and everything was booked up. So having taken the decision to head further out of town to find a room, I spotted a neon that called to me, Pacific Heights was a welcome oasis with just two rooms available and free parking, it costs 50 bucks a night just to park the car in this city, I said we'd take it...

Now morning and not sure if the fog has lifted, but I can hear a fog horn outside so I take that as a NO then.

Our day started with a breakfast at yet another diner, this time it was bagels, very nice too, be hard to return to wheatabix after this.

Then we headed on Highway 101 north towards Pismo Beach where we watched surfers doing battle with the waves. I had money on the waves anyway...

Then after passing San Luis Osbispo we completed the 330 mile journey to San Francisco only to be greeted by cold fog that could be seen from 40 miles away.

Along the way we passed the HQ of Ebay, Yahoo, Intel, Google and we were quite close to Apple too, if hunting for the holly grail, this would surely be the place to start.

Cheated in Hollywood

Apologies are in order, we were informed that the Diner that we had dinner in last night was the location for the Pulp fiction scenes. Well, as anyone who knows me, knows that I'd be on IMDB as soon as I could to check it out, Lies lies and lies, the tour guide made it all up, she also made up the car wash location from the movie of the same name. I'm so relieved that I didn't leaver her a tip, bitch...

Still, the burger and fries were lovely, and I think Stuart enjoyed his huge shake, even though he wasn't at the table with Uma Thurman!

more laters x

More Random pictures from LA

Just some more pictures from todays LA visit...

Movies Movies Movies

With the excitement of kids at Christmas, we headed into Hollywood to have a mooch around at the walk of fame and Kodak theatre. We first went to the "Hollywood Forever Cemetery" anyone that knows me knows that I love to spend hours looking around these places. Found the grave of Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone. We then went up various residential roads toward the Hollywood sign, we got very close to the sign and climbed even higher on foot, ignoring the warning signs of rattle snakes and mountain lions...

Then back in the car heading down to Hollywood blvd Stuart suddenly pulls over and said that a police car has told him to do so, next thing we see is a police officer on each side of the car and I swear that their hands were very close to their guns.

Stuart slowly got out of the car, like a good friend I stayed inside and did nothing, perhaps I may have wanted to run for it, but it was only failing to stop at a "stop sign" (how picky) nice chap let us off in the end...

Getting pulled over by LA's finest was a great experience & since I knew I hadn't done anything serious I figured I wouldn't get shot or thrown in jail.... educated by the movies I moved slowly and was very polite...when I had to exit the vehicle to get my license out the boot and saw a second officer with her hand on her gun covering a sudden movement from a very nervous Stevie, I couldn't help but smile and say "Hi there, How are you today" I think my english accent made her smile and relax the grip on her gun. After a stern warning to obey there laws and with the promise that we'd leave LA we were let off.....I drove away with a really big grin on my face :)

Then after all that, we were trying to find a safe parking spot and amonst a large crowd we spot Barry Manilow outside Capitol Head offices, not being a fan myself we drove on. In fact I'd put him on the same shelf as Blackpool and Vegas!!!!

Then we had diner in the same place where Pulp Fiction had the dining scenes filmed.

Then we head up towards Malibu and take the Pacific Highway as the sun sets over the ocean, again one of the most amazing things to be seen. We got as far as Carpenteria, which is where I fumble away at the keys to try to bring this blog up to date.

Tomorrow morning we should drive to San Luis Osbispo then onto San Francisco.

Vegas to LA

After an early check out from the decaying Somerset Hotel, we headed out of town and towards highway 93 that would take us into Arizona via the Hoover Dam. Arrived so early that we had the place virtually all to ourselves.

Then after 20 miles into Arizona, we turned round and headed towards Los Angeles, stopping off in the desert at Baker to visit the worlds tallest thermometer, it indicated 100 degrees, I didn't disagree! "Betty Swollocks" as Stu would say...

Then we headed on towards LA and drove along Sunset Blvd with the setting sun right in our faces, who could argue.

After some searching for a safe place to rest for the night, I walked into a motel complex that actually had people living in there, made a hasty retreat and we settled for The Comfort Inn in Santa Monica.

Over Easy

So keen to have our first visit to an American diner, we visited this one in Beatty. As everything came with eggs we decided to have King Rancho with eggs.

When the waitress asked Stuart how he'd like his eggs, he hesitated mulled it over then muttered the words "over easy", we guessed it was just something from the movies, she just said "coming right up honey"...

Vegas

Las Vegas, not a lot to say here, but it's like Blackpool on heat.... and I hate Blackpool!

Our hotel is like the one from Barton Fink, the walls were sticky and the place hadn't been touched since early sixties when it was built.

However we did find a wedding to crash, kind of until the bride got very tetchy about me taking shots and I decided to make a sharp exit....

After the beauty of the desert and small town America, to be greeted with the huge visual and noise pollution of Las Vegas, I found it was too much of a shock. We decided to check out at sunrise and head to our next venture.

South Lake to Vegas

After saying our goodbyes to Heather and Dave, we filled up with supplies and crossed the mountain range to join the highway south towards Las Vegas, with the intention of stopping the night at Bishop. However, the car chewed the miles faster than anticipated and after crossing some of the most spectacular landscapes that I have ever seen we arrived at Beatty Nevada and found beds at The Death Valley Inn.

One small piece of advice is, if you drive with the top down as we did, it can take Steve 10 minutes to detangle his hair, must get a hair net....

Considering that this country put man on the moon, getting wi-fi that works in a motel room is so hard to achieve, that's why this blog is a bit slow to be updated, I guess they need all the wi-fi bits to prepare for Mars.... tut.

"That's American girls for Yah" is what Sandy said as I became a fly on the wall of the girls quarters as they prepared for the BIG day. Stu was in the tranquil suite with the the groom party whilst I was treated to all the high fives and hair straighteners that could power a small town (I'm kidding Heather).

Was great to capture the the fun and atmosphere with the girls and then up to Heavenly at 10,000ft with both families and what a way to get married. Heather and all the girls looked stunning.

Then after going even further up to get more pictures suddenly you realise that many easy tasks became harder to do, with very thin air we headed down to the base.

Then finally, our evening was cruising Lake Tahoe on a yacht with Dave and Heathers friends and family, watching the sun set over the mountains was a perfect end to a more than perfect day. I'd like to thank Heather and Dave for sharing it with us....

The day of the wedding, 0500 and I'm awake...kinda... I'm in that Zombie state that can only be cured by caffeine and lots of it. I look like i haven't slept for days, my eyes sore and bloodshot...still heavily jet lagged. Still I can't wait, it's going to be a great day!

Full of Starbucks coffee we head off to shoot Dave and Heather getting ready for their big day.

Arranged to meet Dave and Heather in “Old `Town” Sacramento, what a beautiful place it was. I expected someone to be thrown out of the bar as we walked by and told to “stay out”. The pavements are made of planks and if the cars were removed, you’d swear that it was 1860…

We shot some pictures in and around Old town then headed up to South Lake Tahoe where we shot more shots of our couple in love in fields with such lovely mountain views, truly an amazing place to be, as they say over here “awesome dude”.

Grabbed an early night ready for a long day tomorrow, apparently were about to go up to 10,000 ft where altitude sickness can effect some people, now they tell me…

Hi! Steve here, I'll be the one writing in bold, not because I'm a show off, just so it looks different from young Stuey boy and you know who can't spell etc.

Finally got Doris (our Sat Nav) working on US Maps and she helped us find our destination, thank you Doris I dedicate my first post to you.

Arrived in Sacramento 23 hours after leaving home at 5.30am (UK time) . Dumped bags and headed into town for food. Fell to sleep before my head hit the pillow, 7.17am my alarm sounds and I think what a great nights sleep, only to realise that it's 11.30pm Californian time. I'm really screwed up on this time thing. Still, nice knowing that you can sleep for 8 more hours...

Looking forward to shooting the pre wedding shots later today. We'll be shooting Heather and Dave in Sacremento old town this mornig and then heading up to South Lake Tahoe to do some more shots up there before the big day.

Bye for now!

Driving across the Golden Gate bridge heading towards Sacramento.

California & Nevada Road Trip:

The Road Trippers: Stu and Steve

Destinations : San Francisco (Distance-90 miles-est Drive time- 1.5hrs)to Sacramento to Lake Tahoe (Distance-459 miles + detours-est Drive time-Unknown)to Las Vegas (33miles to Hoover Dam)(Distance-279 miles-est Drive time- 4.5hrs)to Los Angeles -(Distance-387miles-est Drive time- 6.5hrs) Then back up to San Francisco.

Purpose of travel: To photograph a wedding in Tahoe....then to experience 'The American Road Trip' in a Chysler Sebring soft top car!

10/9/09

After reading Jeremy Clarksons review of the Sebring http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article4873574.ece we thought we'd go to the Chrysler dealers to check one out and decided as long as Hammond isn't in the back that it would be fine.

Departure September 16th 2009:

Day1

The plan is at 11.30 Take off from Heathrow to San Francisco, an 11 hour Flight to endure. When we arrive we have to pick up the car and drive to Sacramento where we'll meet up with Dave (the groom) and spend our first night. It's going to be a long day...Bring it on!!